The Brady Bill

House Takes A Step Toward Changing A Violent Culture

November 12, 1993

The fact that passage of legislation requiring a five-day waiting period to buy a handgun is considered an important victory indicates how distorted this nation's views are about guns. Sadly, House approval Wednesday of the Brady bill must be considered a victory, simply because proponents of reasonable gun control have had to fight so long and hard to overcome opposition to this common-sense legislation.

The victory is not complete. The Senate is not scheduled to vote until next week on its own, similar legislation. Although passage is considered likely, the issue is volatile enough that anything could happen.

Gun control is not about preventing sane, law-abiding Americans from having guns. Sound gun control laws can make it more difficult for criminals and mentally imbalanced people to get guns. Such laws cannot by themselves stop crime, and serious proponents of gun control do not suggest that they can. But gun control laws, by sending a message that buying a gun must be taken more seriously than buying a bar of candy, can help change a national culture that now seems to embrace violence.

A reporter for this newspaper, speaking to a group of students in Hampton, was asked by an eighth grader what kind of weapon he carried when he went on assignments in bad neighborhoods. The reporter said that the student appeared genuinely surprised when told by the reporter that he didn't carry a weapon and didn't know any reporters who did.